A Hardcore Heart
Music saved my life. That’s a phrase I hear fairly often, musicians and/or music-lovers on podcasts talking about how music saved them in one way or another. It’s a phrase I’ve always felt was a bit strong; a bit dramatic. It makes me think back to the great Bill Burr bit when he’s talking about people who love to say how they rescued their dogs and he counters with: Did you pull her out of a burning building? Did you jump in a river with your wingtips still on with no concern for your own safety or did you just go down to the pound and get a free dog? I’ve always believed the phrase should be amended to: music shaped my life. That’s certainly the case for me. Music has been the center of my universe ever since Green Day dropped Dookie on the world back in 1994. Music is what I turn to to work through every emotion: happiness, sadness, anger, and all the rest of them. So while I always turned my nose up at the dramatic phrase of: music saved my life, I also reserve the right to change my opinion and last week I read a story that may have done just that. Jesse Malin has been making music—music that’s been shaping and possibly saving other people’s lives—for the better part of four decades and right now he needs music (and its vast community) to save his life.
Jesse Malin started playing in a band at age 12, fronting the New York hardcore band Heart Attack. His (pre-teen) age didn’t stop him and his band from playing at places like CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City opening for the likes of Bad Brains and Cro Mags. In the nineties he fronted the glam-punk rockers, D Generation who opened for KISS at MSG and toured with Green Day. And since the early aughts he’s been a solo artist, releasing records under his own name with songs and lyrics that have touched many people, myself included. Jesse’s slice of life lyrics cause the listener to feel like a friend, crafting relatable songs that help many of us get through our days.
Although his solo music is far less aggressive than the songs of Heart Attack or even D Generation, Jesse clearly holds onto the punk rock ethics he picked up in his early years. The hardcore scene is a community, one that looks out for its own. If someone falls down in the pit, pick them up. If a touring band needs a place to stay, someone offers them a couch to crash on. His mix of heartfelt lyrics/songs with the communal spirit and ethics of the hardcore scene have garnered Jesse the nickname: The Hardcore Troubadour. Though you won’t hear these stories directly from him, other artists are quick to point out that Jesse is the first to offer support to a friend in need.
In an interview a few years back I heard Ryan Adams say that after his band Whiskeytown had broken up, before he found success as a solo artist, Jesse Malin gave him a gig DJing at Niagara to keep him on his feet.
There’s a story in the book Nobody Likes You about Billie Joe Armstrong experiencing a case of writer’s block and Jesse bringing him to NYC to get him away from things to kickstart the creative process before he went back to California and subsequently wrote a punk rock opera that you’ve likely heard of.
In the early nineties when Rancid first came to NYC, Jesse and his D Generation bandmates were the ones to show them around, vouching for them back when the gritty NYC scene wasn’t a place that just any band could stroll right in and be accepted into.
In short, Jesse has always been one to offer a helping hand, the embodiment of the punk rock spirit of community. And his altruism doesn’t just extend to bands.
Despite the fact that it began just over three years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic feels like a different lifetime. The pandemic has become a hot button issue for talking heads on the news shows to yell at each other about. Many have forgotten how terrifying those early days were, all of us sheltered inside worried that we, or worse our older relatives, would be taken out by this invisible enemy. On top of the fear of getting sick, many of us found ourselves out of work, myself included. It was a dark and scary time that music, specifically Jesse Malin’s music, helped get me through.
I’ve owned a dog walking service since 2010. Ten years in with a healthy customer base and all of a sudden people were ordered to stay home. I had no dogs to walk. My wife is a teacher and my son was 7 at the time so they kept busy during the day with virtual learning as I wandered the house, feeling like a loser with no purpose. Jesse Malin began doing a weekly YouTube show called The Fine Art of Self Distancing (a play on his debut solo album: The Fine Art of Self Destruction). His weekly show—which began with Jesse alone in his apartment playing to his iPhone that was held up by a tripod and eventually morphed into full band shows at The Bowery Electric—became my solace. Jesse put something back on my schedule, gave me somewhere to be and something to look forward to. In a time when the music world had gone dark, Jesse’s was the only gig in town and, as Jesse does, he brought his friends along with him giving their bands their own nights to perform in front of a camera and their own at-home audience while also taking the donations the show collected and handing them over to his band, his road crew, the out-of-work employees from his venues, etc.
Jesse Malin is a brilliant songwriter, I’d put him up there with my favorite lyricists of all-time, but it’s on stage where his light shines brightest. He’s a born performer running around the stage like his hero, HR from Bad Brains, and regularly playing songs on the floor in the middle of his fans.
In May, while at dinner with friends celebrating the life of his friend and former bandmate, Howie Pyro, Jesse suffered an exceedingly rare spinal-cord infarction—a stroke in his back—leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. And now, the guy that has helped so many is in need of some help. Jesse’s manager, David Bason, and some friends have launched a campaign via the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund to raise money for his health expenses. In the wake of his diagnosis, which the fundraiser specifies is inoperable, Malin had to cancel a tour planned for this coming summer and must also relocate from his walk-up apartment to an ADA-compliant one with an elevator.
Over the years Jesse’s music has brought me great joy and the handful of interactions I’ve had with him at his shows have all left me feeling like he is a genuine person, deserving of every bit of success he’s had, and then some. His Fine Art of Self Distancing sessions helped get me through a dark period where I didn’t know if I had a career anymore. Jesse has put so much PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) out into the world but now he needs more than our PMA and well-wishes. He needs our help to get him on his feet and back onto the stage where he belongs.
There’s an unwritten rule in punk rock: if someone falls down in the pit, you pick them up. Our punk rock brother, Jesse Malin, has fallen and now it’s time for us to pick him up.
Please consider donating to the Jesse Malin Fund on Sweet Relief.
Ryan Roberts is a dog walker, a Jesse Malin fan, and an author. His debut novel, Nimrod, published by Earth Island Books is available here and everywhere books are sold.
